2 great free resources for learning Chinese

2 great free resources for learning Chinese

This month I want to introduce you to 2 free resources for learning Chinese (Mandarin). Both resources are high tech. One is a free app called Chineseskill and another is a podcast from Jenny Zhu. What I love about both of these solutions is that you can learn on the go if you’re on the MRT or just going for a walk.

1) ChineseSkill

This app is a high quality education game with the Panda as the mascot. It has practical categories such as food, colors, math. Each category has 3 rounds that you must past to unlock the next category unless you pass the “test out”, which will unlock all the categories for that level. The questions are interesting as they go straight into multiple choice questions. These questions have pictures, chinese characters, and pinyin so you can hear the pronunciation when you touch the pictures. It is really obvious which option it is, but you end up learning because of the combination of picture, sound, pinyin, and chinese characters. I think it is genius that they manage to deliver all this information so simply. They have other question formats that test your listening skills, require you to translate the chinese to english, and even write the chinese for the english. This app is useful for learning some chinese when you have downtime at the MRT or waiting for a friend. I’ve downloaded this for the Iphone on the app store.

This app is useful for learning some chinese when you have downtime at the MRT or waiting for a friend

chineseskill is a great app for learning chinese on the gochineseskill app

What you get out of the Jenny’s podcast is that it is entertaining and you get an cultural education from a great team

2) Important Chinese things with Jenny Zhu (Chinesepod podcast)

Jenny Zhu has developed into a household name in the modern Chinese learning world. I discovered that she regularly releases an entertaining cultural show that is both in mandarin and English. Jenny hosts the shot with David Wei, and Fiona Tian. Jenny provides her cheerful personality and has perfected a blend of speaking in Chinese and English. If I recall correctly Jenny spent some time studying in Australia and brings an understanding of Western culture and introduces us to Chinese culture and contrasts the differences on the show. She is entertaining and is not afraid to keep it real and has given me insight into how the Chinese think.

Jenny’s podcast page

Fiona Tan is an attractive half Taiwanese half Western Mandarin teacher based in Taiwan that came to my attention through Youtube. She used the youtube platform to teach things like ordering bubble tea. She recently joined the Chinesepod team and brings a Western and a Taiwanese perspective on the topics they discuss on the show. The show is interesting as they’ve talked about things such as drug busts in China, Health care, and travel. What you get out of the Jenny’s podcast is that it is entertaining and you get an cultural education from a great team. The webpage for each episode lists the chinese and pinyin used on the show as well as actual podcast, which you can play from the site or download and synch on your iphone using itunes. Good job guys.